The most casual observer cannot fail to be struck in any collection of pictures of the Holbein School, with the number that present some aspect or other of death. In the small picture gallery of Basle there is a picture of two skulls and a tibia, by Ambrose Holbein: a diptych, with the bust of a young man on one panel, and a skeleton on the other, by Hans Holbein the Younger: another sixteenth-century diptych with a bust of a girl on one panel, and a bust of a skeleton on the other, by an unknown painter: and two pictures by Hans Baldung (a.d. 1475-1545), one of Death holding a woman by the hair and pointing to a grave: the other of Death kissing a woman before an open grave.
Plague banners, or gonfaloni,[162] are a characteristic product of the Umbrian school of painting, and particularly of its Perugian branch. It was the lot of Perugian painters to ply their art in the midst of tribulations of every kind. Throughout the fifteenth century their country was devastated by war, and by a succession of epidemics of plague (in a.d. 1399, 1418, 1429, 1437, 1450, 1456, 1460-8, 1475-80 and 1486). In the face of these visitations Perugia set herself to appeal to the mercy of Christ through the medium of her art. All her painters scarcely sufficed to provide all the banners required for her expiatory and triumphal processions. It was at times such as these that the gonfaloni made their appearance, raised between heaven and earth, as though to convey to God a splendid manifestation of popular repentance. Before the suppliant banners marched the priesthood in their robes, behind them followed a penitent people, striking their breasts and wailing aloud Misericordia. At each fresh invasion of plague a new generation of artists, beginning with Bonfigli (a.d. 1420-96) and ending with Baroccio (a.d. 1528-1612), was called upon to produce afresh these tributes of the popular devotion. The remedy was well adapted to their sufferings, for these processions of penitents, traversing the city and following banners, that displayed the figure of the Redeemer, or the Madonna, or some other plague saint, produced in their souls such a degree of spiritual exaltation, as made despondency impossible. Men gazed on them as they gazed on the Brazen Serpent that Moses set up in the wilderness. A [striking banner is that by Bonfigli], in the church of S. Fiorenzo at Perugia, painted in a.d. 1476 during an epidemic of plague. Above kneels the Madonna: before her stands the Child in a basket of roses upheld by angels, wearing chaplets of roses, as in most of Bonfigli’s pictures. Both Madonna and Child are crowned. Below kneel groups of citizens, men and women, with Sebastian and other saints, supplicating the Madonna. An angel holds a scroll, on which is inscribed a fervid call to repentance, blended with fierce denunciation of their sins, in these words of Lorenzo Spiriti:
‘Oh, most obstinate and wicked people—cruel, proud, and full of all iniquity, who have placed your faith and your desires on things, which are full of a mortal misery, I, the angel of Heaven, am sent unto you from God to tell you, that He will put an end to all your wounds and weeping, your ruin and your curse through the mediation of Mary.... Turn, turn your eyes, most miserable mortals, to the great examples of the past and present, to the utter miseries and heavy evils, which Heaven sends to you because of all your sins: your homicide and your adultery, your avarice and luxury.... Oh miserable beings, the justice of heaven works not in a hurry, but it punishes always, even as men deserve.... Nineveh was a city florid and magnificent, and Babylon was likewise, but now they are as nothing: and Sodom and Gomorrah, behold them now—a morass of sulphur and of fetid waters.... Oh, therefore, be grateful and acknowledge the benefits and graces of our Saviour, and let your souls burn hotly with the fire of faith and charity, of hope and faithful love.... But and if you should again grow slothful and unwilling to renounce your errors, I foretell a second judgement upon you, and I reckon that it will prove more terrible, more cruel than the first.’[163]
In banners such as this the imagination of the painter finds play for the crowding emotions not of his own heart only, but of the hearts of his fellow citizens as well.
Another type of plague banner is that of the ‘[Madonna della Misericordia]’ in the church of S. Francesco del Prato at Perugia, also by Bonfigli. It bears the date a.d. 1464. In the centre stands the crowned Madonna, a majestic figure erect like a lighthouse amid the storm, on which sufferers may fix their eyes and hope. On her garment lie broken arrows, while beneath its ample folds kneel groups of monks on one side, and of nuns on the other, all in attitudes of prayer. In the upper part of the picture Christ, wearing both crown and cruciferous nimbus, casts arrows down. At His right hand is the angel of justice with sword drawn, at His left the angel of mercy with sheathed sword. Gathered around the Madonna and craving her intercession are S. Lorenzo and the Bishop SS. Severo, Costanzo, and Ludovico. Beneath these to the right SS. Francis and Bernardino, and to the left S. Peter Martyr and S. Sebastian, whose body is pierced with many arrows. These saints have Perugia in their special keeping. At the foot of the picture is shown the city of Perugia, with its emblematic griffin on the wall. Within the walls a white-robed confraternity is kneeling in prayer. Without them lurks Death, a bat-winged skeleton with bow and arrows, whose victims strew the ground. But the prayers have prevailed, and already the archangel Raphael strikes Death with his spear. In the foreground outside the walls is a fugitive family, the mother mounted on a donkey, carrying her infants in its paniers. At a side gate two soldiers make off in haste, as the porter tells them the state of the city. Perugians say that not Bonfigli but an angel painted the face of the Madonna. They might well have said it of the exquisite ‘[Madonna del Soccorso]’ in Sinibaldo Ibi’s plague banner of a.d. 1482 in the church of S. Francisco at Montone. This fancy of the protecting Madonna, spreading her robes over her suppliants, as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, is borrowed from Hebrew poetry. It figures in a similar conception in the language of the ninety-first Psalm: ‘I will say unto the Lord, Thou art my hope and my stronghold: my God, in Him will I trust. For He shall deliver thee from the snare of the hunter, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall defend thee under His wings, and thou shalt be safe under His feathers.’
PLATE XIV (Face Page 138)
MADONNA DELLA MISERICORDIA
BY BONFIGLI
Photograph by Alinari, Rome